I first visited this forum over 3 years ago shortly after this thread first started.

It was begun by a guy who had seen two of the early UFC/MMA events where guys who called themselves 'Aikidoists' were easily dispatched by juijitsu stylists. From this, he adduced that Aikido would not work in a 'real fight'.

having seen one of the matches he was referring to, it was obvious to me that a sport begun by grapplers, on a very soft grappling surface, and with rules favoring grapplers is mostly won by.....grapplers.

It's also true that far too many Aikido schools spend all their time teaching students how to deal with traditional attacks; shomenuchi, yokomenuchi, maybe a front kick, etc.

Very few Aikido schools of the traditional sort I have seen teach students how to avoid an opponent ducking and shooting in below waist level and grabbing you around the knees, taking you down and then climbing on top of you and pounding your face into a pizza.

Which is precisely how the supposed Aikidoka in the video I saw got taken out.

Now, why is that?

Well arts that Aikido was derived from, such as Daito-Ryu Aikijutsu, was formed for use on the battlefield where weapons are present. Not too many schools of thought on warfare believe it's a good idea to try to take an enemy down to the ground and then sit on top of him when combat is going on all around you.

Many Aikido techs come from either taking on an opponent armed with a sword or a staff or knife or where the proponent had the sword or staff.

Judo/Jujitsu the way these MMA guys are practicing it depends on shooting in on an UNARMED opponent.

Yeah it's 1643 and I'm involved in a big battle on the Japanese mainland. There's a warrior on the other side over there who's been training to use that sword he's carrying since he was 5 years old. I've lost my own weapon, so now I'm gonna RUN OVER THERE AND GO LOW AND TACKLE THE GUY AROUND THE KNEES AND TAKE HIM DOWN.

Uh-huh. Suuuuuuuuure I am.

If you ended up taking an armored, weapon carrying warrior on the battle-field with your bare hands you had a far better chance of surviving if you knew aikijutsu. Trying BJJ in that situation would just get you killed.

O-Sensei developed Aikido from Daito-Ryu Aikijutsu, Kenjutsu, and Spear/Staff arts which, lest we forget, were samurai BATTLEFIELD ARTS. It was formulated from weapons techniques primarly to allow a warrior to survive an encounter with an ARMED OPPONENT.

This is why the one key thing missing from most Aikido instruction is low shoots or tackles below the waist, because on the battlefield anybody who charged an armed opponent like that died very suddenly.

Some schools have recognized this, and used Aikido principles to formulate defenses against low takedowns and below the waist tackles.

Others still content themselves with teaching students only how to avoid standup attacks, the basic strikes, mostly punches and grabs and maybe a basic front kick or two mixed in.

BJJ and other MMA centric arts were formulated on the presupposition of two UNARMED people facing each other in an equal contest. The traditional battlefield arts of Japan and China were NOT formulated on similar foundations. It was assumed always that at least ONE of the parties was armed.

Since Aikido is derived from these killing arts used on battlefields, and since very few of those ancient warriors were interested in trying shoot in and tackle armed opponents with their bare hands, it makes sense to me that this under-emphasis of dealing with that sort of attack has carried over to modern Aikido.